The stability of ruthenium catalyst

The chemical stability requires that the chemical compositions of catalyst are stable and can resist the poisoning effect of the harmful impurities (poison) on the catalyst at the reactive conditions. But for ruthenium catalyst with activated carbon as support, elementary ruthenium itself is an effective catalyst for carbon hydrogenation forming methane and the support will be lost continuously with the methanation reaction. In other words, chemical compositions of ruthenium catalyst are unstable under the reaction conditions. This is a determining factor of affecting catalyst life and limiting its industrial application. 

Therefore, one key subject for activated carbon supported ruthenium catalyst study is to solve the loss of activated carbon due to methanation and many scientists have done a lot of studiesd d7,39,iio,i2i,220 current solutions way includes (i) Graphitization of activated carbon and using promoter can inhibit the methanation (ii) Seek for new support that can replace the activated carbon such as metal oxide. 

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